{"id":79642,"date":"2025-01-21T15:00:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kfm.co.ug\/?p=79642"},"modified":"2025-01-21T17:55:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T14:55:03","slug":"ancelotti-still-hoping-real-can-claim-top-eight-finish-in-champions-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/ancelotti-still-hoping-real-can-claim-top-eight-finish-in-champions-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancelotti still hoping Real can claim top-eight finish in Champions League"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reuters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti said on Tuesday he still believes his side have a chance to secure a top-eight finish in the 36-team Champions League table despite languishing in 20th place in the standings with only two games left.<\/p>\n

Off the back of a fabulous campaign last season when they won record-extending titles in LaLiga and the Champions League, Real had a slow start to the defence of their European crown, losing three of their first five matches.<\/p>\n

After a 3-2 win at Atalanta, they are four points off the top eight but Ancelotti reckons they can avoid a playoff and reach the last 16 directly if they win their last two games on Wednesday at home to Salzburg and next week at Brest.<\/p>\n

“There are not many options other than to win the two remaining matches,” he told a press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“Winning tomorrow is a very important one, obviously, because there’s not long to go before the end of the group stage. It’s time to get as much as we can … and then we’ll see. Tomorrow is vital and we’ll try to play well.<\/p>\n

“However, if we have to play the two-legged knockout playoff, we’ll play at full strength. Bearing in mind that the schedule will be even more demanding, but we are used to it.”<\/p>\n

Ancelotti said he was content with his forward line but stressed that his side still needed improvements in defence to contend for the Champions League title.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard to give a grade from one to 100 to the team right now,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Offensively we’re performing very well but defensively we need to improve a lot. This will be the key to success this season. If we do that we’ll fight to the end in all competitions.<\/p>\n

“We have a very complete squad and, considering what happened last year when the departures raised the level of commitment, we found inspiration. We’re ready to fight for it all again this year.”<\/p>\n

Real lost midfield talisman Toni Kroos to retirement at the end of last season, while defensive stalwart and captain Nacho joined Saudi Pro League club Al-Qadsiah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reuters Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti said on Tuesday he still believes his side have a chance to secure a top-eight finish in the 36-team Champions League table despite languishing in 20th place in the standings with only two games left. Off the back of a fabulous campaign last season when they won record-extending titles in LaLiga and the Champions League, Real had a slow start to the defence of their European crown, losing three of their first five matches. After a 3-2 win at Atalanta, they are four points off the top eight but Ancelotti reckons they can avoid a playoff and reach the last 16 directly if they win their last two games on Wednesday at home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":78635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1408],"class_list":["post-79642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-real-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}